Introduction: Is Environmentalism Failing?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Agricultural Pollution ◽  
Great Care ◽  
Chemical Contamination ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
The Rich

This chapter begins with a question that at some point just about every environmentalist asks themselves: “Is environmentalism failing?” In some respects and on some measures, environmentalism has been – and remains – a highly influential social movement. Nonetheless, the earth is clearly in a full-blown crisis as agricultural pollution, biodiversity loss, chemical contamination, climate change, deforestation, desertification, freshwater loss, ocean acidification, plastic waste, and transboundary pollutants continue to worsen. Why is environmentalism failing at this global scale? To begin to answer this question this chapter surveys the forces of global “unsustainability,” sketches the diversity of environmentalism, and defines the parameters of the book’s central organizing concept of “environmentalism of the rich,” taking great care to explain what qualifies – and what doesn’t. The chapter concludes by mapping out how the 11 chapters ahead fit into (and build) the book’s full analysis.

scholarly journals Sequestering seawater on land: a water-based solution to global issues

F1000Research ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 889
Author(s):  
Stéphane Boyer ◽  
Marie-Caroline Lefort
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Water Desalination ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Excess Water ◽  
Desalination Plants ◽  
The Cost

The ‘surplus’ of oceanic water generated by climate change offers an unprecedented opportunity to tackle a number of global issues through a very pragmatic process: shifting the excess water from the oceans onto the land. Here we propose that sea-level rise could be mitigated through the desalination of very large amounts of seawater in an international network of massive desalination plants. To efficiently mitigate sea-level rise, desalinized water could be stored on land in the form of crop, wetlands or new forests. Based on a US$ 500 million price to build an individual mega desalination plant with current technology, the cost of controlling current sea-level rise through water desalination approaches US$ 23 trillion in investment and US$ 4 trillion per year in operating costs. However, the economic, environmental and health benefits would also be immense and could contribute to addressing a number of global issues including sea-level rise, food security, biodiversity loss and climate change. Because these issues are intimately intertwined, responses should aim at addressing them all concurrently and at global scale.

scholarly journals Sequestering seawater on land: a water-based solution to global issues

F1000Research ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 889
Author(s):  
Stéphane Boyer ◽  
Marie-Caroline Lefort
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Water Desalination ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Excess Water ◽  
Desalination Plants ◽  
The Cost

The ‘surplus’ of oceanic water generated by climate change offers an unprecedented opportunity to tackle a number of global issues through a very pragmatic process: shifting the excess water from the oceans onto the land. Here we propose that sea-level rise could be mitigated through the desalination of very large amounts of seawater in massive desalination plants. To efficiently mitigate sea-level rise, desalinized water could be stored on land in the form of crop, wetlands or new forests. Based on a US$ 500 million price to build an individual mega desalination plant with current technology, the cost of controlling current sea-level rise through water desalination approaches US$ 23 trillion. However, the economic, environmental and health benefits would also be immense and could contribute to addressing a number of global issues including sea-level rise, food security, biodiversity loss and climate change. Because these issues are intimately intertwined, responses should aim at addressing them all concurrently and at global scale.

scholarly journals Using the IUCN Red List to map threats to terrestrial vertebrates at global scale

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. J. Harfoot ◽  
Alison Johnston ◽  
Andrew Balmford ◽  
Neil D. Burgess ◽  
Stuart H. M. Butchart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Iucn Red List ◽  
Red List ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Human Pressure ◽  
Terrestrial Vertebrates ◽  
Sixth Mass Extinction ◽  
The Tropics

AbstractThe Anthropocene is characterized by unparalleled human impact on other species, potentially ushering in the sixth mass extinction. Yet mitigation efforts remain hampered by limited information on the spatial patterns and intensity of the threats driving global biodiversity loss. Here we use expert-derived information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List on threats to 23,271 species, representing all terrestrial amphibians, birds and mammals, to generate global maps of the six major threats to these groups: agriculture, hunting and trapping, logging, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. Our results show that agriculture and logging are pervasive in the tropics and that hunting and trapping is the most geographically widespread threat to mammals and birds. Additionally, current representations of human pressure underestimate the overall pressure on biodiversity, due to the exclusion of threats such as hunting and climate change. Alarmingly, this is particularly the case in areas of the highest biodiversity importance.

scholarly journals A meta-analysis on decomposition quantifies afterlife effects of plant diversity as a global change driver

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira S. Mori ◽  
J. Hans C. Cornelissen ◽  
Saori Fujii ◽  
Kei-ichi Okada ◽  
Forest Isbell
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Biogeochemical Cycles ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Plant Litter ◽  
Climate Feedbacks ◽  
Decomposition Rates ◽  
Biodiversity Changes

Abstract Biodiversity loss can alter ecosystem functioning; however, it remains unclear how it alters decomposition—a critical component of biogeochemical cycles in the biosphere. Here, we provide a global-scale meta-analysis to quantify how changes in the diversity of organic matter derived from plants (i.e. litter) affect rates of decomposition. We find that the after-life effects of diversity were significant, and of substantial magnitude, in forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Changes in plant diversity could alter decomposition rates by as much as climate change is projected to alter them. Specifically, diversifying plant litter from mono- to mixed-species increases decomposition rate by 34.7% in forests worldwide, which is comparable in magnitude to the 13.6–26.4% increase in decomposition rates that is projected to occur over the next 50 years in response to climate warming. Thus, biodiversity changes cannot be solely viewed as a response to human influence, such as climate change, but could also be a non-negligible driver of future changes in biogeochemical cycles and climate feedbacks on Earth.

scholarly journals Scientists' warning on endangered food webs

Web Ecology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruben H. Heleno ◽  
William J. Ripple ◽  
Anna Traveset
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Webs ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Natural Food ◽  
Stable States ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Over Exploitation ◽  
Increasing Temperature

Abstract. All organisms are ultimately dependent on a large diversity of consumptive and non-consumptive interactions established with other organisms, forming an intricate web of interdependencies. In 1992, when 1700 concerned scientists issued the first “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity”, our understanding of such interaction networks was still in its infancy. By simultaneously considering the species (nodes) and the links that glue them together into functional communities, the study of modern food webs – or more generally ecological networks – has brought us closer to a predictive community ecology. Scientists have now observed, manipulated, and modelled the assembly and the collapse of food webs under various global change stressors and identified common patterns. Most stressors, such as increasing temperature, biological invasions, biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, over-exploitation, have been shown to simplify food webs by concentrating energy flow along fewer pathways, threatening long-term community persistence. More worryingly, it has been shown that communities can abruptly change from highly diverse to simplified stable states with little or no warning. Altogether, evidence shows that apart from the challenge of tackling climate change and hampering the extinction of threatened species, we need urgent action to tackle large-scale biological change and specifically to protect food webs, as we are under the risk of pushing entire ecosystems outside their safe zones. At the same time, we need to gain a better understanding of the global-scale synergies and trade-offs between climate change and biological change. Here we highlight the most pressing challenges for the conservation of natural food webs and recent advances that might help us addressing such challenges.

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF EMULATORS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF THE GLOBAL-SCALE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (5) ◽  
pp. I_73-I_80
Author(s):  
Jun’ya TAKAKURA ◽  
Shinichiro FUJIMORI ◽  
Kiyoshi TAKAHASHI ◽  
Qian ZHOU ◽  
Naota HANASAKI ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change

Are local losses of biodiversity causing degraded ecosystem function?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Vellend
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Function ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Degraded Ecosystem ◽  
Biodiversity Change ◽  
Local Extirpation

This chapter highlights the scale dependence of biodiversity change over time and its consequences for arguments about the instrumental value of biodiversity. While biodiversity is in decline on a global scale, the temporal trends on regional and local scales include cases of biodiversity increase, no change, and decline. Environmental change, anthropogenic or otherwise, causes both local extirpation and colonization of species, and thus turnover in species composition, but not necessarily declines in biodiversity. In some situations, such as plants at the regional scale, human-mediated colonizations have greatly outnumbered extinctions, thus causing a marked increase in species richness. Since the potential influence of biodiversity on ecosystem function and services is mediated to a large degree by local or neighborhood species interactions, these results challenge the generality of the argument that biodiversity loss is putting at risk the ecosystem service benefits people receive from nature.

scholarly journals Effect of environmental history on the habitat-forming kelp Macrocystis pyrifera responses to ocean acidification and warming: a physiological and molecular approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela A. Fernández ◽  
Jorge M. Navarro ◽  
Carolina Camus ◽  
Rodrigo Torres ◽  
Alejandro H. Buschmann
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Coastal Upwelling ◽  
Macrocystis Pyrifera ◽  
Natural Variability ◽  
Kelp Forests ◽  
Species Response ◽  
Enhanced Expression ◽  
Mesocosm Experiments

AbstractThe capacity of marine organisms to adapt and/or acclimate to climate change might differ among distinct populations, depending on their local environmental history and phenotypic plasticity. Kelp forests create some of the most productive habitats in the world, but globally, many populations have been negatively impacted by multiple anthropogenic stressors. Here, we compare the physiological and molecular responses to ocean acidification (OA) and warming (OW) of two populations of the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera from distinct upwelling conditions (weak vs strong). Using laboratory mesocosm experiments, we found that juvenile Macrocystis sporophyte responses to OW and OA did not differ among populations: elevated temperature reduced growth while OA had no effect on growth and photosynthesis. However, we observed higher growth rates and NO3− assimilation, and enhanced expression of metabolic-genes involved in the NO3− and CO2 assimilation in individuals from the strong upwelling site. Our results suggest that despite no inter-population differences in response to OA and OW, intrinsic differences among populations might be related to their natural variability in CO2, NO3− and seawater temperatures driven by coastal upwelling. Further work including additional populations and fluctuating climate change conditions rather than static values are needed to precisely determine how natural variability in environmental conditions might influence a species’ response to climate change.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document